Covid-19: with 4 new patients, China locks down 1 mn people in global epicenter Wuhan
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Despite China’s ongoing brutal ‘zero-Covid’ policy, the pandemic has returned to the land of its origin, in ebbs and flows, slowly grinding the world’s second-largest economy. This time, officials have thrown nearly one million people behind locked gates on the outskirts of Wuhan, the global epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic that has claimed over 6.3 million lives worldwide since early 2020.
According to the media reports on Wednesday, nearly one million Wuhan’s Jiangxia district residents have been ordered to stay in their homes and not venture out. This has happened for the first time in Wuhan, which saw the world’s first Covid-19 lockdown, underscoring how far the country is from post-pandemic normalcy.
Over two years since the city was sealed off to contain what was then mysterious pneumonia, all public transport has been suspended, and entertainment venues shut for three days after they found four asymptomatic cases in the district on Tuesday.
Although the four infections and the lockdown are restricted to only Jiangxia, officials are likely to widen the curbs beyond the pandemic-afflicted city of 11 million, where people had barely returned to normal since its initial lockdown in 2020. Wuhan witnessed a small outbreak in April and a few cases in June.
Meanwhile, China has continued its zero Covid strategies of lockdowns, movement restrictions, and mass testing despite the people’s anger and unhappiness, with more contagious variants circumventing the strictest curbs. The country reported 604 local cases for Tuesday, down from 868 a day earlier.
Officials are also focusing on the southern manufacturing hub of Shenzhen, which also reported four new cases to bring the tally since July 19 to over 150. The flareup prompted an order for some of China’s biggest companies to operate within a “closed loop” system for seven days, raising concerns about global supply chain disruptions.
The Shenzhen city officials have directed the 100 biggest companies, including iPhone maker Foxconn and oil producer CNOOC Ltd. to restrict operations only to employees living within a closed loop or bubble, with little to no contact with people beyond their plants or offices. To reduce infection, they have also asked companies to reduce unnecessary interaction between non-manufacturing staff and factory floors.
Officials said the outbreak was under control on Tuesday, with most cases being found early and promptly isolated, although they still expect new infections. They linked the outbreak to cross-border cases, health commission official Lin Hancheng said, without giving further details.
Shenzhen police last week said they arrested 82 people, including 19 drivers delivering supplies between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, for smuggling goods and breaching epidemic prevention laws in recent months. Authorities said they would strictly enforce the closed-loop system for drivers, who are not supposed to have contact with the outside community while they are working.
Elsewhere, Shanghai reported 16 local cases, including one found outside quarantine. To reduce outbreak risks, the financial hub is conducting two rounds of mandatory mass testing in nine of its 16 districts this week.
Local transportation associations have proposed to operate warehouses under a closed-loop system to contain the situation in the Baoshan district, which found cases among logistics workers. Operations at 17 steel warehouses have been halted for three days from Tuesday, and the transportation of some steel scrap was also disrupted, according to a survey from researcher Mysteel.
The media reported that most of China’s cases are centered in the hotspots of the Guangxi region in the south, which recorded 269 cases Tuesday, and the northwestern province of Gansu, which had 234 new infections.
